Vegetarians would equate it to a box of coal. But carnivores who receive a package from Allen Brothers will feel as though they’ve received a treasure chest filled with priceless gold.

Purveyors of high-grade beef claim they are shipping more steaks and roasts to consumers than ever before. The reason is twofold. Those glossy catalogs filled with impeccable photographs of thick red filets and dry-aged ribeyes are being sent to almost 50 percent more U.S. households compared to three years ago. Thus, if you lay eyes on a single page, the result is profuse salivation followed by a mad dash to the telephone with your MasterCard in hand.

Secondly, the growing shortage of top-quality beef has left consumers with slim pickings in the grocery stores. The best cuts of meat lately end up in the coolers of high-end steakhouses, and by the time you polish off that pre-dinner martini and ala carte salad, you’ve already burned your monthly allowance for bar-hopping, tanning sessions and juicy cantaloupes from Whole Foods.

Yet ordering meat through the mail isn’t exactly cheap either — especially if you lust after the highly prized, newly introduced Kobe-style beef, which sells for an average of $100 per pound in this year’s Allen Brothers catalog.

The meat, which originates from Japanese cattle known as Wagyu, scores a juicy nine on the grading chart for marbling and flavor, compared to ratings of four and five for USDA Prime. The beef is also extremely low in saturated fat and high in healthy monounsaturated fat because the herds are fed a steady diet of “sake mash” for more than 550 days.

“Kobe beef is so velvety and evenly marbled that the fat melts from human body temperature,” says Todd Hatoff, vice president of Allen Brothers.

But who’s buying these exclusive steaks and other fancy fleshes that include Lobster-Stuffed Filet Mignon, Heart of Rib Roast and Chateaubriand?

Hatoff admits they are upper-income consumers living in big cities throughout the U.S. And women, he adds, account for 43 percent of recent sales. “The meat mailing industry is growing very fast. We’ve developed a good year-round business, with 50 percent of our sales occurring between October and December.”

As with other meat-by-mail companies such as Omaha Steaks and Heartland Steaks, the products arrive either refrigerated or frozen. But Hatoff recommends choosing the latter because “blood purges from the meat when it’s sitting in a non-frozen state – and it tends to lose flavor.”

Though many of the catalog companies offer other types of meat, such as lamb crown roasts, smoked hams, turkeys, and duck, Hatoff says the majority of consumers buy filet mignon, with ribeye ranking a close contender for first place.

Says a spokeswoman for Heartland Steaks: “The options are vast. And people who have purchased cheeses and baked goods in the past by mail are now discovering that the high-quality meat they can order is something pretty special.”

And so are the prices, for those who aren’t accustomed to buying anything except flank steak and an occasional tri-tip from the supermarket. If you find yourself succumbing to a meat catalog this holiday season, keep in mind that those four 16-ounce strip steaks, which cost around $125, don’t include shipping.

More importantly, if you’re paying $37 for a two-inch porterhouse steak, or $55 for a cranberry-stuffed pork loin for that matter, it’s best to keep a close watch for your mail carrier so that the meat doesn’t end up slow baking on your doorstep. And for all intents and purposes, put away those frying pans and Crock Pots.